Journey to Hadvar's Landing
Saturday, 21st of September, 1204 (Early Evening) Later that evening, members of the group wander about the town center. The sun sets in the distant horizon. Aria leaves to go on a long bathroom break. Harvey is in Duke Reynor's mansion, and decides to stay the night there. An Elvish Ranger Ambassador is present as well in the mansion, and is also staying the night. Kimaris finds his way out of the library, and talks to the enchantress in the market just as everyone else has. He buys a Starlight Wand to enhance his radiant powers. إشراق, Tootslaepuk, and Kimaris head down to the inn to get a good night's sleep. Zer arrives at the inn shortly afterwards. The slightly gray clouds drizzle on the inn. Tootslaepuk buries her pouch of money and Aria's in a secret location, and dumps the rest into her breast cloth and enters the inn. She finds a sturdy, rectangular wooden table and sits on it. "Mildred, dear, would you mind getting me a four pints?" Tootslaepuk asks the barmaid. "Right away!" Mildred the Moldy replies, and walks off towards the kitchen. Kimaris walks in, he seductively moves and casually walks over to Tootslaepuk's table. She tosses a gold coin at him. "Our business is finished." She tells him. "Our business isn't finished, until I'm finished." He tells her. "Back off." She says. "What am I?" Kimaris asks her. Moving on, he asks "Well, how was your day?" "Delightful." She tells him. Kimaris stares off into the fireplace, dreaming of a better world. Kimaris begins to climb the stairs, Elion (the barkeep) notices him. "Hey! Have you paid for a room?" Elion asks him. "I have business with the attic room." Kimaris replies. "It's occupied by the owner right now." Elion tells him. Kimaris smiles unpleasantly for a very long time. "I'll...let you explore a bit. Just don't do anything strange." Elion says. إشراق flirts with Elion a bit, and purchases a room for 3 gold. إشراق goes upstairs and goes to sleep. The door opens, and the drizzle drips into the inn. A hooded figure walks into the inn, and doesn't take his hood off. "Close the damn door!" Tootslaepuk yells. Zer walks up to Tootslaepuk. She blinks at him innocently. "Aria and I were successful in killing Helga." He tells her. "Oh how magnificent!" She replies. "What happened to Timmy?" He asks. "Oh! He was returned, and Banor raised the reward a bit. Kimaris is currently up in the attic with your share." She tells him, mischievously. Zer walks up towards the attic, up the stairs. Kimaris presses lightly against the oak door upstairs, it is locked. Kimaris heads over to a window. Zer walks up the stairs, and finds him gazing out the window. Zer approaches him "Where's my money?" he asks. Kimaris reaches in his pants..."Oh...that's funny...I don't, uh, see it." he tells him. Zer draws his dagger. "Ah...no mercy...really?" Kimaris says. At some point, Kimaris realizes that he had the money for a while, until Tootslaepuk talked to him. Kimaris convinces him that Tootslaepuk has his gold, but Zer just wants his gold from Kimaris. Tootslaepuk, quite drunk, walks up the stairs and puts her arms around them. "Guys...Guys...*Hiccup* What seems to be the problem?" She tells them. Zer tells her Kimaris has his gold. "Zer...I think I have your money..." إشراق wanders out of her room. "What's going on out here?" Tootslaepuk tries to explain, and Zer figures it out quickly. إشراق just wants them all to shut up and go downstairs. Zer reaches into Tootslaepuk's shirt and takes the gold that belongs to him. Kimaris, Zer, and Tootslaepuk wander back downstairs. إشراق goes back to bed. Kimaris goes downstairs, and asks Elion for a room. Elion is really freaked out by Kimaris, and charges him full price for his room. Zer falls asleep by the window, back upstairs. Tootslaepuk is still downstairs, drinking a few more pints. Back at the mansion, Harvey wanders around. He looks around for anything interesting. He goes to Duke Reynor's room, fumbling about in the dark. He sees the Duke and his wife, asleep in the bed. He also notices a chest at the foot of the bed. Harvey unlocks the chest, and finds a journal along with a sack of 1,000 gold. He very carefully, sneaks out of the room. The mysterious ambassador, Darth Xantham, decides to leave the mansion at night and ends up at the River Bend Over Inn. He slides past Elion, and goes upstairs. Seeing everyone, relatively awake, he goes back downstairs and tries to steal some gold from an innocent bystander. Xantham approches a particularly large partygoer, and tries to stick a hand down his pocker. He gets caught. "Hrmmph. What are you doing? Looking for something sticky fingers?" The partygoer says, glaring down at him. Xantham looks, saying nothing, and dodges away. He lands on Tootslaepuk, and she pukes all over him. "Uh...Whoops!..." She mumbles, and stumbles away. Tootslaepuk, while searching for Mildred, sees a hooded figure with a half-bone mask. Missing his left eye. He is approaching Mildred from behind, with a dagger. Tootslaepuk grabs a tankard, and chucks it at the man. Completely missing, she hits the large partygoer in the head. "What the heck!?" He exclaims, and searches around for the person who threw it. Xanthum also notices the man, he tries to sneak up behind him. Tootslaepuk jumps across tables, still rather nimble while drunk, and the cultist doesn't see her coming. Xanthum leaps over the bar, startling Mildred, she screams. إشراق runs downstairs, upset that she has been woken up. Kimaris opens the door, without his pants. He stands on the staircase, looking down. Zer rambles downstairs as well. The man turns around, and attempts to go out the door. Tootslaepuk tries to throw a mug at the door, and misses. She hits Mildred, knocking her out. Kimaris is quite bewildered. Kimaris leaps down the stairs, and lands in the middle of the bar. Zer shouts at him "Stop now!" The cultist ignores him, and continues to try and get out the door. Xantham tries to gain ground on the cultist, who is now out of the door. إشراق leaps over the bar, and reaches the door. Tootslaepuk leaps over the bar as well. Kimaris attempts to run after him, not wearing any pants, and stumbles over Mildred. He falls to the floor. Zer runs towards the door, but has to force some people away and doesn't gain much ground. Xantham draws his longbow, and lets it fly and it hits the cultist in the leg. إشراق reaches down, and pulls his mask off. "Who are you?!" She yells furiously. "You bitch!" He yells back. Tootslaepuk tries to heal him, but just drops all of her cloths. Xantham pats the cultist down, and he finds a note. He opens it, but it is written in a different script. He gives it to إشراق, and she reads it. The note says: "We need another priest. Go into town and grab someone they won't miss. Fail, and you will die. - Zarkath" إشراق remembers that Zarkath is the powerful Lich that was responsible for the uprising of the cult during the early days of the Elves. إشراق asks him a few more quesitons, and he refuses to respond with anything useful. The cultist hints that he is going to die, very soon. Kimaris asks him how large the cult is, the cultist says "We are more...than you will every know...and we are growing." Zer drains the rest of the life out of the cultist, and he drops to the floor. The city guardsmen are approaching, to figure out what happened. Some are gathering in the bar to handle the chaos. Three guards come up and ask what happened, Kimaris leaves to go and put some pants on. The guards tell them that they all should go and see the duke. The guards escort everyone to the duke's mansion, and they pound on the gates. The duke approaches the gates "What's going on?" he mumbles, in his bathrobe. "Do you know what time it is?" the duke complains. The guards explain the situation to him, and asks for any information that he might know relating to the cultist. Everyone goes inside, and heads to sleep. Sunday, 22nd of September, 1204 The next morning, إشراق goes downstairs for breakfast. She walks into the dining room, and sits down with the duke, his wife, and their eight year-old son. Harvey is also at the table. Tootslaepuk wakes up and curses loudly at the sun, washes her face, and stomps downstairs. She joins them at the table. Kimaris wakes up (from Tootslaepuk's curses) and prepares for the days, he puts his pants on. With a belt, he goes downstairs for breakfast. Zer takes a children's book (The Illicit Adventures of Hervy the Toad) from the room, and goes downstairs as well. Harvey tells the duke that Xantham stole from him last night. The duke believes him. "What did he take? He left last night, when could he have taken anything?" the duke asks. "Please, eat up!" the duke tells them all. إشراق tells him their story, and the duke is quite interested. Kimaris learns that River Bend has a traditional monthly party, and asks the duke why it was canceled. The duke replies woefully "Well, there have been sightings around our town of these cultists, and I thought the party would be too big of an opportunity for them to take someone else." Harvey tells the duke that he thought that Xantham was thinking about sniping him through the window. Xantham defends himself, and the duke is appalled that this conversation is happeneing at the breakfast table. The duke looks at Harvey "You joker! This man is a ranger, he would never do anything that absurd." The duke tells them that in Hadvard's Landing, his friend Baron Adrius has many issues and the cult is also present there. إشراق promises the duke that they will head down to Hadvar's Landing and see if anything important is going on down there. With the duke absorbed in the theivery dilemma, he dismisses everyone but Harvey and Xantham. Tootslaepuk sneaks out of the room, and finds the gold under Harvey's mattress. She takes the gold (and the journal) and sneaks out of the room, avoided Martha (who has been coming up the stairs to search the room). Tootslaepuk places the gold and the journal under Xantham's pillow. Martha climbs up the stairs, and into Xantham's room. Tootslaepuk drops out the window, and is knocked unconcious. Martha notices that the pillow is bulging a little bit, she sees the journal and the gold. She goes back downstairs to report it to the duke. Martha tells the duke that under one of the pillows she found a book and the gold, the duke follows her to make sure of it. Xantham runs out of the mansion, and into the town. The duke finds the gold, and is upset that the elf would steal from him. Everyone is now in town, and إشراق has gone back to the library. She asks the librarian, Gilan, if he has found anything relating to her question from earlier. He replies excitedly "I think I know what is plauging you. You see there are many different planes in this universe, but this curse is not of Fey origin. Instead, it is from the Shadowfell. It occurs when someone is resurrected from the dead. But you have not been killed? Something is very strange. I think the planes are bleeding together somehow, and dark magic is penetrating the Fey. Who did this to you?" إشراق replies "A mysterious woman cast this curse on me as I left the cave." He tells her "I hear rumors of the Shadowfell bleeing through into our world in a place called the Bleeding Swamp. Arch Mage T'zan of Time has been studying it for years, and is also an Eladrin. He may be able to help you. Seek him out, at the Temple of Abandon." Zer is getting Tootslaepuk's gold from the bushes, and Tootslaepuk crawls to Harvey, who is asking for a carriage. Kimaris is at the library, and goes back to the altar of Melora. He says to her "Could you describe to me the general location of the cultists, long ago?" She replies "In a place called the Bleeding Swamp, that is where they used to be. They now seem to be rising again." Everyone agrees to wait for the carriage at the stables, with the exception of Xantham who is trying to evade the guards. The horsemaster, Billy, leads the carriage and horses out, and as the carriage is about to pull away, Aria jumps in front of the carriage and yells "Wait!" She hops in the back and they head out on their way to Hadvar's Landing. Sunday, 22nd of Semptember, 1204 (Early Afternoon) The duke gave Harvey a letter that says all of the group can be trusted at Hadvar's Landing, to give to Baron Adrius before they had left. Now, they head out of the city on their way. All of the guards are running around the city looking for someone named "Xantham." Billy halts the carriage for a break, the surrounding are mysterious. On one half of them, lush farmland blooms for miles, and on the other side of the road there was a murky, dead swamp. Everyone streches and Kimaris unbuckles his pants. Billy starts talking about something interesting "It's weird that they sent us out here without an escort...We've lost a couple of horsemasters and horses lately..." Tootslaepuk hops onto the driver's seat and rides up front instead. Everyone eats some trail rations since it's around noon. Now, the journey resumes. An hour in, they hear a sharp thud come from the driver's seat. The carriage stops. Billy has fallen to the ground, muttering "Damn...I was two days from retirement..." He has an arrow in his chest, and is now dead on the ground, the horses stop. Tootslaepuk yells to the rest of the group what just happened. إشراق jumps out of the carriage and hides under it, she notices five humanoid figures in the woods. They appear to be moving closer. Kimaris hops out and hides with إشراق, he hears the clippity clop of an oncoming rider... Xantham is riding up on a stolen horse and arrives at the carriage, then he sees the bandits. Harvey takes out his loudmouth cone and addresses the bandits "Yous bandits! Stop shooting at us please!" The bandits in the woods yell back "We want your carriage and your horses! Along with any valuables you have!" Xantham goes behind the carriage and draws his longbow. Aria hops on Xantam's stolen horse. Tootslaepuk hops off the carriage, and moves towards the bandits. She pulls out her sling and picks a rock up, it hits a bandit in the shoulder. Xantham peaks around the carriage and shoots an arrow at the same bandit, and it hits the bandit. The bandit it very close to dying, and flees into the woods. One of the other bandits chucks a hand axe at Tootslaepuk, it hits her in the leg. Zer reaches his hands up to summon radiant power, but nothing happens. Kimaris curses a bandit, and he begins glowing with bright pink light. He points his hand at the bandit, knocks him in the chest with the pink light and Kimaris yells "It is...the power of love!" Harvey raises his crossbow and smacks a bandit in the chest. إشراق raises her hands up, and lets rainbow energy shoot towards the bandits. One the bandits gets hit right in the face, and is stumbling about, dazed by the rainbow. Another bandit tries to chuck a dagger at إشراق, but throws it the wrong way and it clatters onto the dirt. Tootslaepuk pulls out her serrated knife and stabs a bandit right in the gut. Xantham takes his longbow, and shoots another bandit in the crotch. Zer uses his outstretched fingers and draws purple engery from one of the bandits. Kimaris throws a javalin of darkish energy at a bandit, and it hits him. إشراق conjures an orb of engery, and throws it towards one of the bandits but it misses him. Aria mutters a prayer to Bane, and swings her sword glowing with energy towards the bandit and stabs him through the side. Zer gets hit in the foot with a bandit's dagger. A bandit swings his giant axe down on Aria, and she is hit in the side. Tootslaepuk uses her dagger and stabs the bandit again. Xantham draws his longbow and shoots an arrow at a bandit, the bandit falls to the ground and bleeds to death. Zer casts healing power towards Aria and helps heal the gash in her side from the battleaxe. Zer then hurls a massive fireball burning black at the nearest bandit, he catches on fire and screams on the ground. Kimaris channels the power of his dragon trunk and thrusts black energy at the bandit, he then zips his pants back up. Harvey takes his crossbow and pretty much decapitates another bandit, he falls to the ground, dead. إشراق conjures up a flaming sphere, but it just rolls away down the road. The very last bandit burns to death. The group loots the bandits, and Tootslaepuk and Zer steal the clothes Billy was wearing, before the group buries him. The group continues on the way to Hadvar's Landing as the sun just passes over their heads. Sunday, 22nd of September (Late Afternoon) After the battle, everyone gathered around the carriage. Tootslaepuk dashes into the Marsh Ruins after the other injured bandit that ran away. Kimar begins talking to Xantham, and Harvey joins in as well, he threatens Xantham. Xantham pretty much tells them "Hey, so I've helped in a couple conflicts and been pretty useful, are we cool?" Aria, on Xantham's horse, says that she wants to keep the horse. إشراق suggests that everyone gets a move on, and she is gonna drive since she can talk to the horses. They all get a move on, and leave Tootslaepuk to catch up later. After a while of traveling with no other encounters with bypassers, the sun sets as the reach the main gate that is closed tight. The walls of the city curve around towards the sea. A man comes to the top of the wall as they arrive, "Who goes there?" he asks. Kimaris begins flirting with guard, and addresses him seductively. The guard gets a little creeped out, and asks to talk to someone else. Harvey asks him to get in, and the guard reluctantly starts to let them in. Suddenly, they all hear metal clanking and screams, the guard says "I'm sorry we're trying to contain something and we can't open the gates right now." Xantham notices that there is a small crevice in the wall further down towards the sea. إشراق teleports up to the top of the wall, see can see the city and docks beyond. Just below her, there is a large market square, there are many people with pitchforks and torches standing in front of Pelor's Temple, yelling. Zer tries to barter Xantham for a way into the city, but it leads to nothing. إشراق jumps down, and convinces the guards down below to open the gates. Everyone else moves into the city and sees the crowd of people rioting. Kimaris unbuckles his pants, and walks saunters through the gates as well, Xantham keeps walking around the wall and walks towards the crevice, which turns out to be a small hole leading into the city. Zer walks through the gates and so does Harvey. The guard explains to them what just happened, a man came into the square and just started yelling and ranting about the recently instated curfew laws, before they knew it, a crowd had gathered and they were armed. Between the crowded buildings and the guards rushing in at all anglesm the only clear path in directly through the mob. Harvey pulls out his loudmouth cone and directs the people to stand aside, and the group moves through the mob to the front. Kimaris gets approached by the side by a guard, who attempts to grapple him but he trips and falls on his face. Aria is also approached, and the guards try to arrest her too. The center of the square contains a massive bronze statue, holding a very large stone hammer. The group reaches the center of the mob, and the guards attempt to arrest them. The guard, realizing that he just tried to arrest Harvey, tells him immediately that he will escort Harvey away. إشراق tries to to go with Harvey, and Harvey tells them that the rest of the group are with him. The guards tell him that they just can't distinguish anyone, and continue arresting everyone. Kimaris tries to break away from the mob, and heads towards the alchemy area. إشراق convinces the guard to let her be escorted with Harvey. Kimaris gets himself arrested. Aria yells a guard "Hey! Fuck face!" and smacks him in the helment, the guard whips around and arrests Aria too. Aria and Kimaris have been taken to the barracks, and Harvey, إشراق, and Zer are being escorted to the baron. Xantham has sat down with the baron for an evening meal, and the guard escorts إشراق, Harvey, and Zer into the room. It is a very large throne room, with a golden throne with a symbol of Pelor over it. Sitting on the throne is, a very frustrated, Baron Adrieus. The Baron addresses Harvey, and Harvey hands him the letter of reccommendation. The Baron invites them all to a feast in the dining room, Xantham is seated already at the table. The other guards have thrown Aria and Kimaris into a giant cell, with no weapons or any of their belonging. Kimaris is so emotionally disturbed by the jail, that he just grasps the bars in despair. Aria notices one other person in the corner of the cell. "Whatcha in for?" Aria asks him. He looks over and says "Let's just say that I have a perpetually line of crimes." Aria asks him about the riots upstair, and the guy tells her that he's already been in their for a couple weeks. He introduces himself as Fisheye. Fisheye tells Aria that he speacializes in breaking people out of jail. He works for the Union, and he stays in prison to break his own people out. Aria asks him to break them out, and her and Kimaris will have to do some sort of favor for the shipmaster of the Union of Seamen. Fisheye explains how it's going to work. إشراق starts asking the Baron about what is going on. The Baron tells her that they have had to enforce stricter laws to catch whomever assassinated his father. No one is allowed after dark, since people have been being strangely abducted. The Baron explains that the people who are being stolen are the lowlives, but no one seems to get that they will be next. Harvey asks to tell the people, and see if they will listen to him. The Baron mentions sightings of dark hooded figures and half-bone masks. Zer tells the Baron that the group has had multiple run-ins with these types of people. The Baron tells them that Frenn (the shipmaster) controls the docks, and that if they want to ship anything they have to go through him, Frenn has been talking people up and down about the new laws. The Baron tells them that the group should work with the guards to work out the riot, and that they will help convict Frenn of something to remove him from power. At this moment, a woman enters from the great hall, Layla Lovegood. Adrius turns around and introduces the travelers, and lets her know what they intend to do. Layla sits down and begins eating with them. The Baron invites them to stay in the castle overnight, and they all agree to stay for the night and make plans tomorrow. Meanwhile, Aria and Kimaris have escaped jail and head towards shipmaster Frenn to complete the deal. Aria and Kimaris are put in a room with shipmaster Frenn, and Kimaris asks him who he is. Frenn tells them he is rather powerful, and Aria continues to stare at him. Frenn tells them that they must do a favor for him, he explains that his organization has a dark side. Every once and a while, they like to stir up a little trouble, but what happened in the square today was not their doing. Adrius suspects Frenn of it, and so he cannot investigate. Frenn needs them, as outsiders, to investigate for him. Frenn tells them that he isn't the only one with a shady organization in town, a Logging Company in the western side of the city is an intelligence organization. Thier two leaders, Harvey and Tootslaepuk Mim have left the city and so he wants to know who is in charge while they are away travelling, because he suspect the riot has something to do with their company. Frenn suggests they go and investigate the saw mill, and when they both return, he will give them back their belongings that were left in the prison. Back at the castle, Harvey begins sneaking around. Xantham leaves his room to go and talk to Layla, in the throne room. Layla tells Xantham that Adrius is so caught up with Frenn that he hasn't been paying attention to the cult growing within the walls. She suggests that he goes to The Tomb of Brothers, in the middle of the cemetery, and that the cultists may be located there. إشراق continues to sleep and so does Zer. Category:The Cult of Shadows